“Each time, roughly once every decade or two, new maritime history buffs are born,” she continued.

Cummins reported that when the sunken ship skeleton was uncovered in 1958, locals believed it was the remains of a so-called pink, a small flat-bottomed square-rigger. But in 1980, when a spring storm revealed the mysterious ruins again, a marine archaeologist said it was likely a Revolutionary War-era sloop.

Elsewhere in York County, Cummins wrote that the weekend storm uncovered the outline of at least one other ship on the east end of Gooch’s Beach in Kennebunk as well. The identity of that vessel is uncertain, she wrote, but it may have been one of two ships known to have run aground in the area in the early 19th century.